Saturday, October 24, 2009

Their toes mushed soft clumps of green lake weed as they walked barefoot hand in hand in the warm shallows of the beach of pebbles washed smooth by the waters of time.

Their shared gaze of reflection cast southward across the great lake to the vast deserts of Michigan, Wisconsin and the drifting sands of a paradise lost to the vaporizing indifference of the Sun’s rays.

The shared nightmare of a future lost to a waterless world of tortured baked clay, rock, sand and dust wrought discomfort and anxiety as the collective vision twisted and contorted their souls.

Stay tuned for information on 350 Poems events as we near December's United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to contact us at 350poems@gmail.com.

350 Poems?

350 Poems is part of 350.org's international day of climate action on October 24th. On this site, 350 poets each contributed a poem responding to climate change in the days leading up to the 24th. As an additional constraint--mirroring the real political obstacles and shortage of time we face--each poem was required to be 3.5 lines in length. The poems were posted in the order they were received.

Why 350? Because that is the agreed upon safe upper limit for CO2 in the atmosphere (in parts per million). We're currently at 387 and rising, close to what climate experts call "the point of no return."

What Else Can I Do?

This is a critical moment: we and our political representatives must act quickly in the less than two months before this December's Conference.